morebedsidebooks's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
3.5
I’ve always loved to do that, to invent the lives of strangers in passing. It could almost be considered an obsession. I believe it started when I was a child. I remember its worrying my mother. “Stop with your lies!” she would say. She used the word “lies” instead of “stories,” but nevertheless, it continued, and all these years later, I still find myself doing it.
Lie With Me is an English translation of French writer Phillipe Besson’s Arrête avec tes mensonges translated by Molly Ringwald. (Yes, that Molly Ringwald from the Breakfast Club or, to this generation playing Archie’s mom on the TV series Riverdale.) Somewhat autobiographical, the novel contains the over twenty years later mature reflections of a verbose writer on first love as a teen in 1984 rural France. A bestseller, it has been nominated and won awards in the last few years. More attention coming with translations, a hype train behind it with comparisons to several contemporary American gay works going back to Brokeback Mountain. (That title as part of a collection by Annie Prolux was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and if you lived through the Brokeback Mountain movie mania, I suppose that would give an idea of the discussion around this book.) Can it live up to such expectations? Having read it in two languages it remains a beautiful, if melancholic book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Grief, Suicide, Sexual content, and Death of parent
Minor: Alcohol, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Death, Car accident, Vomit, and Ableism
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